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fter escaping a snare and hiding at a traditional market in Indragiri Hilir, Riau, for three days, a tiger was finally rescued on Saturday.

A rescue team from the Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) shot the animal with a tranquilizer gun at 1:48 a.m. on Saturday while it was hiding in a pit under a stilted shophouse at a traditional market on Burung Island, an islet located in Indragiri Hilir’s Burung Island district.

“We had to tear down the shop’s bathroom floor so that we could remove the tiger while it was sedated,” said Riau BKSDA head Suharyono.

The team struggled to move the male tiger, which is estimated to weigh about 80 kilograms. The team also had to race against time as the sedative is only effective for two hours.

After it was successfully removed, the animal was placed in a cage and examined by three veterinarians.

“It is approximately 3 years old,” Suharyono said.

The vets found snare wounds on the tiger’s front left and back right legs, while one of its fangs was fractured, which likely occurred during its attempt to break free from the snare.

The tiger will be sent to a conservation center in Dharmasraya, West Sumatra, which is operated by the Arsari Foundation.

From Indragiri Hilir, it will be taken by speedboat to Tembilahan, a district in Indragiri Hilir, and later transported by truck to Dharmasraya. Considering the rampant hunting of tigers, the agency said the journey would be guarded by police and military personnel.

Suharyono said the BKSDA was investigating how the tiger had gotten trapped in the market as the islet is not its natural habitat.

“We named [the tiger] Atan Bintang. Atan means young bachelor in Malay while bintang means star, because we rescued him at night under the stars,” he said.

It first became known that there was a tiger in the area on Wednesday at about 11 a.m. local time, when a resident spotted it walking around under stilt houses belonging to Johari, Atek, Aming and Ayang. The tiger’s appearance immediately stirred uproar in the densely populated area.

Shortly afterward, the picture of the tiger went viral on social media and people flocked to the market to see the animal.

The police and residents put nets around the shop and continued monitoring the tiger’s movements until the team from the Riau BKSDA arrived at the scene on Thursday afternoon, according to Burung Island district police chief First Insp. Junaidi.

At least three Sumatran tigers have been spotted in housing areas in Burung Island district in the last two months. On Sept. 9 and Oct. 25, a tiger attacked a number of cows in Sungai Danai and Teluk Nibung villages.

Riau BKSDA spokesperson Dian Indriati said her office had placed traps and installed surveillance cameras in some spots to trace the tigers’ whereabouts but without success.

Animal welfare activists have repeatedly said that habitat loss often forced wild animals, including tigers, to roam into plantations or residential areas in search of food and increased the chances of them coming into conflict with humans.